Introduction

Abstract

Even though R.G. Collingwood’s and Michael Oakeshott’s lasting contributions to the philosophy of history and political theory have been registered, their impact on British post-World War II historical and political thought has been seen as marginal. It is symptomatic that Christopher Parker’s The English Historical Tradition, the only systematic study to seriously consider idealism as a tradition informing British historical thought, dismisses the new idealism from the theory and practice of British postwar historiography: ‘Of course, most historians concerned themselves not at all with either Oakeshott or Collingwood.’ The ever perceptive Perry Anderson has noted the absence of this type of idealism in discussions on postwar British ideologies: ‘Anglo-Scottish Idealism of the early years of this century […] has become one of the least recollected episodes of the native past.’